


[affection via affiliation]

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: [to see you there] [30]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Tony Stark's special relationship skills, Tony seriously worships the ground she walks on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: It is a truth not widely acknowledged becausefuckedif Tony isevergoing to bring it up or let anyone else talk about it around him and nobody else would ever have reason to consider it or wonder if it was a thing that Tony kind of fucking loves it when Pepper actually deigns to wear Iron Man-branded apparel.





	[affection via affiliation]

**Author's Note:**

> This is seriously just a moment of intense Tony/Pepper fluff from Tony's questionably comprehensible pov.

It is a truth not widely acknowledged because _fucked_ if Tony is _ever_ going to bring it up or let anyone else talk about it around him and nobody else would ever have reason to consider it or wonder if it was a thing that Tony kind of fucking loves it when Pepper actually deigns to wear Iron Man-branded apparel.  
  
It's only ever around home, and it's generally t-shirts, soft sweats or the very occasional Ironette tank-top and with the tiny exception of when he is in fact in such a bad mood that he's doing really deliberately stupid shit to hurt himself, and knows it, and still can't stop himself, Tony _never says fuck all_ because if he acknowledges how _much_ of a warm-fuzzy feeling it gives him inside he knows he will fucking end up sabotaging it deliberately, because it is not that he is not aware of his bad habits or even that he wouldn't rather not have them it's just that sometimes that doesn't matter, so he's _not going to do that_. But if anything, for that matter, that all just makes it more -  
  
Well. _More_.  
  
In fact it would mostly make it cheaper and ruin it if anyone else even knew. Because then it would be a performance, even though it still wouldn't be, and he can't trust performances and then he'd get twitchy (again) and wary (again) and anxious (again) and (again) do something fucking stupid about it.  
  
Absolutely zero percent of that makes the truth any less true, though.  
  
Right now she's in a pair of yoga pants and a black unisex t-shirt that just has a silkscreened image of the arc reactor on the front, with a silkscreened image of one of the windows that shows output and stress numbers and so on for it, like Tony'd see on his helmet.  
  
. . . from the Mk-II. With some of them made up. Because he's not a fucking idiot. At least not that kind.  
  
Her hair's in a ponytail and she's sitting with one leg folded and frowning at one of the tablets, but it's the one that only has games on it, because she's going through _The Room_ and its sequels because Little Miss Lewis's last Wellness Conversation had been about mental leisure time and how Pepper's head was going to explode one of these days.  
  
Tony's thinking of mentally designating Miss Lewis as a corgi. Because corgis are herding dogs, even are specially shaped to herd cows of all things, but if you stop and think about how that had to look it had to look _fucking hilarious_ with this tiny-assed little dog chasing cows around yipping at them and occasionally this is totally what Miss Twenty-Something Lewis reminds him of when she's gently chivvying Pepper into not killing herself with stress before she manages to get white hair.  
  
Tony does not mind this. At all. It's hard for _him_ to be able to say fuck-all when he's worried about Pepper because let's face it, his own quote-unquote self-care and self-maintenance for health is, not to put too fine a point on it, shit and he knows it and that kind of undermines his ability to suggest that maybe she needs some more sleep than she's getting up until the point where she's actually managing to be worse than him, and that's a whole lot of Not Optimal to cover.  
  
And _believe it or not_ Pepper has a deep, deep reserve of contrarian stubbornness that means that when people she admires tell her to look after herself sometimes she just digs her heels in deeper and since she usually has pretty sharp spikey heels on that can cause a real problem - Romanoff seems to have more leeway than a lot of other people except then Pep starts feeling slightly Inadequate and that's not great either.  
  
(And Tony appreciates that Natasha realizes this and so limits herself a _bit_ on the nagging, at least compared to what she's willing to do for, oh, everyone else when she thinks they're being stupid, and it's not like Tony has fuck-all leeway to say . . . anything, really, about not being great about showing that you like people without also being kind of annoying.)  
  
(The thing that really amazes him, actually, is how Romanoff can at the same time hassle and badger and otherwise bother people about looking after themselves and yet have it come off as about as maternal, feminine and nurturing as a rock. Frankly Barnes is more motherly than she is and he still avoids talking for more than about six sentences at a time to anyone he hasn't known for at least six months. It's kinda impressive.)  
  
But frankly somehow _because_ Lewis is young enough that Pep could have babysat her for pocket-money in middle-school she can tell Pepper stuff that Pepper honestly already knows and herd her into looking after herself and Pepper just goes _okay fiiiine!_ and does it, and it all works out.  
  
And Tony's admittedly been standing here leaning on the wall thinking about all of that and the fact that she's totally wearing one of his shirts and that's just the kind of thing that does in fact come with a warm fuzzy feeling inside and he'll stab anyone who gives him any shit about that, which they won't because nobody will ever know there's anything to give him shit about, for a while, so it's not totally shocking when Pepper says, "You have completely stalled, you know."  
  
"Less stall, more deliberate-pause and moving out of gear," Tony disagrees more out of reflex than because it's true. "All the way into 'park', even. And then possibly dithering over what kind of minidoughnuts to get inside the service station - actually, was there something I was supposed to be doing, or did I just come in here to remember how great you look on my bed?"  
  
He has actually forgotten. It could be either. He might be able to remember if he tries harder but he . . . kinda can't be bothered. Asking's faster. It's the weekend. Well actually it isn't but he can pretend. Who cares.  
  
Now Pepper does look up and looks tolerant and amused. "Soda, Tony. You were going to get us both a soda."


End file.
